


The Mystery is your Eye(wear)

by Sanyue



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Kurogane is done, M/M, Pure and utter crack, poor Syaoran, scheming Fai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 12:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15340344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanyue/pseuds/Sanyue
Summary: Kurogane and Fai set out to unravel the greatest mystery in all 233 chapters of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Crackfic.





	The Mystery is your Eye(wear)

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth wall? What fourth wall?
> 
>  _No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye._  
>  \- Elizabeth Bowen

The first world they landed in after leaving Clow, leaving _Sakura,_ was one of those blessed modern ones where certain enclaves of people would routinely dress in outfits more varied and outrageous than garments from entirely different worlds. As such, upon stepping from the cover of an alley into the whirring, bustling city beyond, they got no more attention than a few curious looks, eye-rolls, and a mutter about “cosplayers”. Maybe a snapped photograph or two.

“Looks like we’ll fit right in!” Fai grinned, spinning to face his companions. He paused. Frowned suddenly.

“Fai-san?” Syaoran questioned, wary of the deepening crease between the magician’s eyebrows. Especially when those eyes swept over Syaoran with the kind of intensity normally employed by particularly critical relatives at family gatherings.

“Something’s missing,” Fai announced.

A pregnant silence fell between them, because they all knew what was missing – jade green eyes and a gentle smile, a dimension away – but then Fai shook his head. “It’s not…It’s you, Syaoran-kun. Something’s missing.”

And there were plenty of things he – they – had lost over the course of their journey, clones and time and little pieces of their heart, but for once Fai seemed to be referencing something more superficial. Syaoran glanced down at himself. Couldn’t find anything off.

“I don’t see it,” Kurogane grunted. Mokona cocked her head in thought.

“Mokona thinks Syaoran looks fine. But there’s something different.”

 _“Missing,”_ Fai reiterated.

 _“What_ is?” Kurogane said tiredly.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be _asking,_ silly Kuro-tan.” Fai ducked the customary swipe at his head without looking, eyes still fixed on Syaoran. Syaoran was getting uncomfortable now.

“Why don’t we find a place to stay, get our bearings first?” he suggested. “Maybe then we’ll figure it out.”

Reason trumping curiousity, they set off in search of a hotel, as lodgings tended to be called in worlds like this. Syaoran managed to talk Fai out of charming – quite literally – the receptionist into giving them rooms gratis, found a pawnbroker and sold off some Clow jewellery, then talked Fai out of getting a penthouse suite. By the time they settled in and had lunch at the hotel’s buffet restaurant – their compromise – the missing something had been well forgotten.

Until they went shopping for this world’s clothes.

Syaoran had picked out an ensemble similar to what he wore in Hanshin, but when he stepped out of the changing room Fai squinted at him as if his shirt and jeans had metamorphosed into a frilly tutu. Not that Fai should judge, since he himself was in a crop top Syaoran wasn’t sure was from the men’s section, one that exposed a sliver of abdomen which Kurogane was most certainly not staring at.

“Syaoran-kun, can you turn in a circle, please?”

Syaoran did so with appropriate trepidation, because the last time Fai had asked him to do this, it had been two seconds before he declared Syaoran a perfect fit for the glittery Lovely Assistant Dress to complete and complement a magician job Fai had signed up for.

“Is something still missing?” Syaoran asked.

“Somehow, I thought it would be more apparent once we changed, but –” Fai frowned harder and tilted his head, as though that would help him see better. “I don’t know. What do you think, Kuro-rin?”

“Kid looks fine.” Kurogane was wearing black, as usual. Mokona was an incongruous splash of colour on his shoulder, having attached massive flowery hair ornaments to the lengths of both her ears.

“Mokona thinks Syaoran looks less like something’s missing now!”

And they left it at that for the second time, went exploring the city instead. By the time they returned to the hotel (having bumped into another version of Ryuou, been given an impromptu tour and gotten lost in the subway), the missing something – or rather, the missing missing something – had slipped their minds.

Until Fai collected their old clothing for the hotel’s laundry service, and it hit him.

On check-in, Fai had immediately claimed the double room with Kurogane while Syaoran took the adjoining room accessible through a connecting door (which would be firmly shut when bedtime rolled around, thank you very much). Now the muted sound of running water floated out from Syaoran’s bathroom.

“The goggles,” Fai said.

Kurogane raised an eyebrow at him from his recline against the pillows, manga in one hand. “What?”

“Syaoran-kun’s goggles. That’s why he looked so strange in Clow’s clothing – have you seen him in one of those big-hooded cloaks _without_ the goggles around his neck?”

Realisation dawned in Kurogane’s eyes.

“I told you!” Fai crowed. “I did wonder why he wore that ratty old cloak in the beginning, when Sakura-chan didn’t hesitate to supply us with these beauties –” he patted the fabric in his arms “– but I guess that look was just quintessentially Syaoran-kun, wasn’t it? The goggles fit.”

“You know what’s _really_ strange,” Kurogane said slowly. “He doesn’t wear them. The goggles. Like, over his eyes.”

An interlude of contemplative silence followed this observation, broken only by the gurgling shower in the next room.

“But surely once…?”

Kurogane shook his head. “Not even in that world with the damned talking rabbits, when we went right into the eye of the hurricane. And the wind was _wild.”_

“Piffle, neither,” Fai said. “He wore that visor-thing we bought when he drove his dragonfly.”

Another pause.

“Do you think he can actually _see_ through those goggles?” Fai asked, curiosity ballooning in his chest. “I mean, they look pretty opaque, with those lines right in the middle…”

“Are they even goggles,” Kurogane deadpanned.

“They’re shaped like goggles. What other article of clothing do you know of consists of two bulbous pieces joined by a strap…” he trailed away.

“No,” Kurogane said.

“But it _would_ fit a being of Mokona’s size –”

“And why the _hell_ would the kid have…have….undergarments tailored for a being of that size, or _at all_?”

Fai pouted. “You started it, Kuro-pii.”

“Forget I said anything. Look, just ask the kid if you’re that curious.”

“What’s the fun in that? It’s a mystery! Think about it, Kuro-pon – we know so many things, each other’s deepest darkest secrets, learnt so much about the worlds we’ve been to, even got a step-by-step walkthrough on how to unravel space-time, but we’ve no idea what that thing that’s been around Syaoran-kun’s neck for the better part of the series _is!”_

Kurogane looked at him as if he were crazy, but there – a flicker of interest.

“Still, why not _ask?”_

“Because that’s boring! And there would be no fic if we did! Besides…” Fai flounced onto the bed. “When you think about the clothes we were drawn in, they’ve always been practical to some degree. You had your lightweight armour and that humongous cloak with which to wrap yourself in and pretend to be a shadow, because you’re a ninja –” He silenced Kurogane with a finger to his lips when the man opened his mouth “– and I had my long sleeves and hood and fur trim, because, well, _cold._ Sakura-chan’s clothes were fancier, but she’s a princess, you know, entitled to these things. Even Mokona-chan’s earring served a purpose. I get Syaoran-kun’s cloak and all, but the goggles-thing? It’s not even a clasp to hold his cloak together. It’s just…there. It’s an _aberration.”_

“And?”

 _“And_ if it doesn’t do its job as clothing, there must be some other practical use for it. Which, in all two hundred and thirty-three chapters of the manga, we’ve never encountered.”

“So just ask.” Kurogane screwed his eyes shut.

“But he’s never said anything about it. I don’t want him to feel obligated to tell, if it’s something important to him.”

“If it was, he wouldn’t have left it behind.”

“Look.” Fai glared. “Syaoran-kun only told us about his past and his turning back time and all that at the very _end_ of the series, and that’s one huge conundrum _finally_ solved after so much hair-pulling and brain-twisting. But the goggles? It’s _un_ solved.”

“So you’re saying this could be a bigger thing than the very fabric of dimensions being torn apart.”

“Exactly. We have to approach this _delicately.”_

Kurogane looked down at himself. In not a fibre of his being could he find _delicate._ “What do you propose?”

Fai grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t tell me you’ve never wondered. If the existence of those goggles are explained at any point in guidebooks and the like, I’d love to know it. Anyway, this is going to be pure crack – I don’t know what I was on when I wrote this, but I firmly believe the opportunity to write crackfic should be seized with both hands.
> 
> Also, more trc art is up on my [tumblr](https://asanyue.tumblr.com/), if you’re interested :D
> 
> As usual, feedback is welcomed with hugs and kisses.


End file.
